Catholics who feel uneasy about the Church's wealth are simply suffering from a bourgeois guilt complex, according to the Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi.
The Tablet reports that the 71-year-old, who is known for his outspoken views, also warned the faithful not to be influenced by the opinions of middle-class clergy.
"That is a class that knows how to keep its own wealth and has all the best furniture in its homes, but to placate its guilt it proposes that the Church should be more austere", he added. "Ordinary people are not attracted by this ideology. It's a bourgeois thing."
Biffi went on to say that all Catholics shared in the Church's wealth, and that there was no scriptural sanction for the idea that the Church should be poor.